


Cherry

by queentangerine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Best Friends, Fluff, M/M, really just lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4327908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queentangerine/pseuds/queentangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. In which Dean forgets how phones work and accidentally sends Cas a text professing his love for him, and tries to quell his nerves with excessive amounts of candy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cherry

Dean is holed up in the basement hugging a three gallon bucket of expired halloween candy. Fortunately,  _‘enjoy by’_ dates are of little importance in the business of eating his feelings, and he has to say it certainly is much more satisfying to eat ten different bite size candies than one large candy bar. 

Scratch that. Make it twenty and two. Or thirty and… he’s going to be here a while.

The basement will be his tomb; he's going to die here, and that's okay. He uses the candy to create a makeshift epitaph, sorting them in the process for easy access, removing the greatest hits of chocolate from the bucket and leaving behind the stuff that's all sour and sugar. Including an inordinate amount of the dreaded cherry flavored anything (the worst flavor), which inevitably always tastes like medicine.

No, he's in a chocolate kind of mood and whoever _doesn't_ agree that chocolate is the king of sweets is lying to themselves and the world.

He spells out SO LONG and then mentally adds _and thanks for_ _all_ _the fish_ because that's far too many letters, then dives right in for a fun size 3 Musketeers from the O and replaces it with another from the bucket. Just because this is it for him doesn’t mean he can’t keep a clean house. After all, he’s going to stick around and haunt the crap out of Sammy and speaking of that devil - 

Three hard knocks rattle the door at the top of the steps, the elephant (not) in the room reminding him that he can’t actually escape his fate forever.

“Get your ass up here and stop acting like a child."

“No! Fuck off, Sam."

And Sam then informs him that this level of melodrama is entirely unnecessary.

Sam is wrong. He has no idea what he's talking about it. Dean is in his grave already and he’s taken this secret with him. Only the one other involved party will ever know his cause of death. 

“I know you think your confession was some great secret, but only _from you,_ apparently. You’re about as subtle as a train wreck."

How the hell can Sam even know what happened?

“How do you even know what happened?"

“Because Cas called Charlie and Charlie called me, and I’ll have you know it took her a good ten minutes to stop laughing long enough for me to understand what she was saying." 

Goddamn Cas and goddamn Charlie. So much for friends.

“Fuck off, Sam!"

“Fine. But Cas is on his way and I’m not stopping him from going down there."

Dean must have had an aneurism or a seizure or something of that nature. It’s the only plausible explanation for his carelessness.

Other pretty solid explanations:

1\. He was possessed by a demon. 

2\. He's a character in a cartoon and he tripped and fell on a banana peel, face first onto his phone.

3\. He hallucinated.

4\. He’s cursed?

_Weak_ , maybe, but they all make more sense than anything else he can come up with.

Never in his life prior to this had he sent a text, email, what have you, to the wrong person and the one time that it really counted, well, to put it bluntly, he fucked up big time.

Seven little words he’d meant to send to Charlie for a rational, level-headed discussion.

Because Lisa had dumped him a week ago and Charlie kept trying to _console_  him despite his assurances that he was  _fine._  She didn’t believe him (though she probably had no doubts now), but he honestly was okay and when he thought about why he realized it’s that he’d rather hang out with Cas over Lisa any day because ... 

**I think I’m in love with Cas.**

Here’s another possible explanation: he’d temporarily forgotten how to read. _Cas, Charlie_ , they both start with _C,_  they both contain an _A_ , it could _happen_ , but it didn’t matter anymore, because the moment he’d pressed send and the message shot off irreversibly into cyberspace he  _clearly_  saw the name **Cas**  at the top of the screen.

And now life as he knows it may or may not be entirely over.

Temporary bout of insanity over and he jolted like he’d been struck by lightening and he felt the all to familiar beat of a panic attack waltzing in, and Cas, who often took several hours to respond to texts, answered almost instantaneously.

**Dean?**

His first instinct had been to shoot back _APRIL FOOLS!_ but it's July and it's  _Cas._  He might be able to pull shit like that on virtually anybody else, but never Cas. He couldn’t have said anything anyway, because he’d turned completely to stone.

**Is this** **true?**

**Please answer me.**  

The texts from Cas were coming rapid fire and even though the phrasing of Dean’s original message made it explicitly clear that it was meant for someone else, it didn’t matter when he could do nothing to extract it from Cas’s brain. It’s seared into Dean’s _own_ brain forever and always and there’s no taking it back now. 

**Dean, can I come over?**

See, there’s this key word in Dean’s text. _Think_. Meaning that yes, okay, he is ( ~~definitely~~ )  _probably_  in love with Cas, but he isn't one thousand percent sure, because he’d literally just had the eureka moment not ten minutes before he typed it up _,_ and he wanted to run it past a non-partial second party before making any rash declarations.

**Dean, answer me.**  

And he blew it spectacularly. 

**I’m coming over.**

He'd wanted to burn his phone, or hurl it out the window and run it over with his car, because maybe that would do the trick, but he’s broke and couldn’t afford a new one. So he settled for turning it off and popping the battery out, shoving the phone beneath his mattress and throwing the battery into the depths of his closet so no freak accident could reunite the two and invite more messages. 

Then he threw _himself_ down two flights of stairs to hide in the unfinished basement that's used exclusively for storage and hasn’t been so much as cleaned in five years. 

Four years ago, the last time Sam had gone trick or treating, at which time had been _two_ years since Dean had been trick or treating, Sam stubbornly hid his haul when Dean threatened to steal it. Sam, being the goodie-two-shoes that he was (and still is) didn’t actually intend to eat most of his candy, but he was just really dead set on making sure Dean suffered.

Dean had looked for the hoard, but never found it. 

Fast forward back to the present, the hell into which Dean had dug himself, and there it is, sitting stashed in the farthest reaches of the basement between a sentimental box of Dean’s baby clothes and another of Christmas ornaments and covered in a long lost  _Star Wars_ sheet and a multitude of cobwebs.

The basement is in fact, a fantastic place to hide things from Dean, who is (man enough to admit he’s) terrified of spiders. He’s already had to step on two and dodge another, but these desperate times…

There’s just as much dust as candy and thank god for plastic wrappers, because the actual sweets are _fine,_ if a little stale, and Dean is not in a state to complain. 

Well, to complain about that, at least. But at least he gets to console himself with candy.

He’s eaten the entire L of Milky Ways so he builds a new one, but after digging around in the bucket he can’t find enough so he fills in the gaps with Mars Bars. Keepin' it in the galaxy family. 

It’s probably a sign that he should slow down, not because he might make himself sick (he’s got something of an iron stomach), but the chocolate in the bucket is running dangerously low, and it’ll only be a matter of time and a couple more chocolate letters before it’ll turn into a cherry flavored disaster. 

He sticks out his tongue at all the reject candies because if he’s going to act like child he’s going to do it one hundred percent all the way. That’s who he is, never mind that he is _twenty years old_. And when the basement door creaks open it takes all he’s got not to shove his fingers in his ears and hum and pretend he doesn’t hear the descending footsteps. But he _does_  shut his eyes at the sliver of light streaming from the open door, though it’s mostly because his eyes had adjusted to his dimly lit cave and the additional light stings.  

To add insult to injury, the intruder (obviously Cas) flips on the rest of the lights Dean purposely left off. Because he couldn’t be _found_ in the dark, theoretically. 

Dean fumbles blindly for more chocolate to comfort himself, and the taste of _Twix_  confirms it came from the N, presumably no longer recognizable as such since his hand barreled right through it. But that’s not really a pressing issue anymore. 

The issue is Cas making his way across the basement in that carefully calculated way that’s undeniably _Cas_ , and actually shifting boxes around to make a path instead of just vaulting himself over them as Dean had done.

But hey, he’s A-okay with Cas prolonging the inevitable confrontation. It’s why he’s down here with all the creepy crawlies anyway.

Grand professions of the this sort should be done with finesse and charm, and frankly, _accidental text_ is just sloppy and embarrassing, not to mention this whole utter _overreaction_. He get's that now, but it’s _too late_  , and he’s had a lot of time down here to think about it. He would have told Cas sooner rather than later, but he’d have preferred some time to weigh his options, devise some sort of cute scheme, and _prepare_ for every possible outcome.  

Then he hears Cas stop abruptly right in front of him, time has run out, and he opens an eye to peek and he’s standing there, brows furrowed, and holding his phone out in front of him like it’s the holy freaking grail. 

No _hello_ , no _why they hell did you make me come all the way down here_ , just, “Is it true?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about."

_Yeah, great job Dean, feign innocence, you’re only in the basement for fun and games._ Anyone buying this?

“Would it help if I told you I was in love with you too?"

“I don’t know. Maybe. Is _that_  true?" 

He drops down into a crouch, placing his phone on the floor next to him, and starts moving the candy letters around,  _destroying_ Dean’s handiwork, but Dean’s a little dumbfounded and still a little too shellshocked to protest but he manages to sneak a handful of Hershey’s Kisses from the S before Cas adds them to the pile of out his reach. 

“If I told you I’ve been in love with you since Kindergarten?"

“I’d say you’re lying.”

“You’re right. That would be absurd.” And he sits all the way down, cross-legged, in front of Dean’s so their knees are just barely touching, and takes one of the reject cherry hard candies from the top of the bucket. Cas is a weirdo who _likes_ the cherry flavor.

He unwraps the candy, making a face at the dust that puffs from the plastic, and says, “It was the first day of high school,” before popping the candy into his mouth.

Dean nearly chokes on chocolate he’s swallowing and sputters out, “You’re kidding,” even though he can tell by the way Cas is staring at him and the set of his jaw that he is, in fact, _not_. 

“I wish I was,” he says solemnly. “It would make me monumentally less pathetic if I hadn’t been pining for six years.” He pauses, sucking on the candy while mulling something over. “But at least I’m capable of texting only the people I intend to text."

Dean groans. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?"

“No, I don’t think so."

“Great." 

“Do you remember the first day of high school?"

He shakes his head and eats yet another piece of chocolate while Cas reminds him. 

"I wore my cookie monster t-shirt, the one that’s just his face on blue - "

“The one that matches your eyes,” Dean mutters.

“Yes, that’s the one.” He smiles. "I hadn’t yet realized that in high school you’re supposed to pretend you’re too cool for things that _everybody actually likes_. Crowley started teasing me the second we entered the building and you told him to _shove it_. And it would have been fine if Al and his gang weren’t waiting just around the corner to do the same. You saw me panic and you dragged me into the nearest bathroom and we traded shirts. The worst I had to deal with was people commenting that they didn’t know I liked AC/DC - "

“Which you don’t, you heathen."

“ - and any teasing directed at you was light-hearted instead of venomous because people actually _liked_  you, and anything mean would’ve just bounced right off of you anyway."

“People liked you too."

“Not many."

“Well I liked you. _Like_ you. Present tense. And you know you never gave me back that shirt."

“You never asked for it. And it’s soft, I like to sleep in it sometimes."

“Loser."

“Yeah, but you love me.” And a pause. ”It is true, right?" 

Because Dean, the coward, still hasn’t _confirmed_ it. Now or never.

“Yeah, I love you."

“Good.” 

“But I was such an _idiot_  in high school."

Cas shrugs. “And you still are an idiot.” He points to his phone and waves vaguely at Dean’s current state. “Exhibit A. But it’s alright, I don’t mind."

“How come you never told me?"

“I was trying to avoid a reaction like this one? You weren’t there yet, but I knew that you would be one day and there was no need to rush."

“Sorry I was so slow on the uptake."

“Don’t be. Either way you’re still my best friend and we have our whole lives ahead of us."

And that comment’s got him feeling all sorts of warm and fuzzies burrowing deep down which is quite the one eighty considering not even half an hour ago he had accepted his imminent demise.

_Whole lives._  He likes the sound of that. But now that he’s caught up he’d rather not waste any more time.

“So…” He’s still got handful of Hershey’s, and he holds one out to Cas, and (kind of) makes a move with _intent_  this time. “Kiss?"

Cas looks at the chocolate, then meets Dean’s eye with a wicked grin, thankfully seeing right through Dean’s thinly veiled ploy, and he surges forward, knocking Dean’s hand of the way, and lays one on him.

And Dean doesn’t want to let him go when he tries to pull way so he chases after him and Cas laughs back into it. There’s not much grace to it but he doesn’t care because Cas’s lips are soft and inviting and he tastes sweet, like chocolate (but that’s from Dean) and -  

… and cherry candy.

The flavor is infinitely sweeter when he’s tasting it on Cas’s tongue. And he daresay he actually likes it.

Finally Cas breaks away, breathing heavy, but Dean’s not ready to be done, so he goes in for another.

“I have to breathe sometime, you know,” Cas says. 

“Maybe there’s a way around that,” Dean murmurs against his lips. 

Cas kisses him quickly and then starts to stand, pulling Dean up with him as he goes. 

“We’ll see what we can do, but let’s get out this basement first. All this dust is going to make me sneeze and _that_  we can't work around."

They make it halfway up the steps before Dean stops suddenly, realizing his latest mistake, and Cas crashes directly into him.

“Wait! We forgot the candy!” 

“Dean,” he sighs, “you’re incorrigible." 

And Dean ignores his exaggerated eye roll and he bounds back down the steps to collect the bucket. 

“Maybe, but you loooove me,” and he can’t help it if he says it all singsongy and teasing, but it’s worth the little laugh he gets from Cas.

It’s imperative that he rescue the rest of the candy. There’s no time to scoop the remaining chocolate from the floor, but it’s the bucket that he has his sights set on, all that cherry candy. He’d been approaching it all wrong before, when he’d deemed it a _cherry flavored disaster,_ because in this new light he’s discovered it's not so bad if it's secondhand, and  _Cas_ is a cherry flavored delight.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ahaha idk guys. This is what I do at work instead of working. They should fire me.


End file.
